“CONFESSION of a GHOST”
a novel by Alexandra Kryuchkova
in the “PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY” series
18 BEFORE/23 AFTER. HOUSE No. 10 (ÌÑ)
*****FOMALHAUT*****
***
Somewhere in the Universe
I stood knee-deep in water at the door to House No. 10.
“Is the Ocean there as rough as the sea in House No. 1, or is it pacific?”
“Even the Pacific Ocean sometimes rages, but we’ll walk on water, don’t forget you’re still in Heaven, not on Earth!”
As I opened the door, I saw another star.
“Hello, Rukh!” she exclaimed happily and hugged me.
“Fearful soul!” the Guardian laughed, noticing my suspicious look. “You are incredibly lucky here! It’s rarely to have a Royal Star in exact conjunction with the MC!”
“What is MC? And what is your name?” I asked the Star, and the three of us walked along the waves into the distance.
“MC is the door to House No. 10, Zenith, the Middle of the Sky, the highest point at the moment of incarnation, and I’m Fomalhaut, culminating in your MC. The MC changes its position by 1 degree every 4 minutes, so our exact match is rare.”
“MC indicates your destiny as mission on Earth and the degree of success in its realization,” commented the Guardian. “It symbolizes the original purpose of one’s incarnation, vocation, one’s awareness of one’s role, what one lives for, the aspirations of one’s soul. On Earth, this concept is replaced by one’s professional career, which does not always coincide with one’s vocation. The brighter the MC and the House No. 10 are, the stronger the person stands out from the crowd. If IC, the door to House No. 4, is midnight, MC is midday. Together they form an axis, as do ASC, the door to House No. 1, and DSC, the door to House No. 7. Both axes intersect in the center of the Circle of Life and form a cross. IC is cellar and MC is Zenith, the highest point one will reach during incarnation.”
“Sounds like Rahu,” I remembered.
“Rahu doesn’t show what you’ll achieve,” the Guardian clarified. “It says in which Sphere you have to work on yourself. In your case, it’s about creativity. Notice that Rahu is into the Royal Degree and the MC is in conjunction with the Royal Star! Extraordinary rarity!”
“Rahu, the Ascending North Node, is the head of the Dragon,” Fomalhaut smiled. “It indicates the direction to move. Whether the Dragon will reach the top of the Mountain, and how his ascent will end, is told by the MC. Your MC is lit by me, the Royal Star, one of the four Guardians, the Alpha of the Southern Piscis. I was known in ancient Persia 3,000 years before Christ. My luminosity is 16 times that of the Sun, and my life span is a billion years. I bring immortality and unfading glory. Royalty, brilliance, strong charisma, luck, honors, a name that will outlast the ages. Such people reach some cherished heights even during their lifetime. You won’t go unnoticed!”
“Glory can be different,” the Guardian specified. “Fomalhaut sends many temptations and trials. With the MC in Piscis, ruled by Neptune with the help of Jupiter, Fomalhaut provides powerful spiritual patrons, opens access to the Secret Knowledge. The Star is a Teacher and loves students. However, it’s easy to stumble. One can become a murderer, and glory turns into shame and leads to self-destruction. For example, Adolf Hitler had it in conjunction with Mars, a symbol of aggression and war.”
“The road to the top of the Mountain of Glory,” Fomalhaut sighed, “is a narrow path, there is a bottomless abyss on both sides, and the Prince of Darkness has set many traps on the way. I love highly spiritual beings who serve the world and keep their thoughts pure, whose ideals and dreams are beyond the earthly and material spheres. Piscis is the terminal, most sacred Sign of the Circle, symbolizing the completion or rejection of the earthly and the transition to the level of the Spirit.”
“The English call Fomalhaut the Lonely Autumn Star,” the Guardian recalled. “The ancient Arabs called it ‘the Fish Mouth’, attributing the characteristics of Venus and Mercury, the Lord of the Word, with the influence of Neptune. As an astrologer said, it’s bitter-sweet madness of the poetic mind. Here, in House No. 10, you have Venus also, which is in charge of your House No. 5, including Creativity. Success in the field of art, especially related to the voice, is guaranteed to you.”
“The fish is silent,” I was surprised.
“Your earthly voice will become a guide of the silent heavenly Piscis,” the Guardian smiled, patting me on the shoulder with his wing.
“Did any famous people, not murderers, have Fomalhaut in their passport?”
“The US President Abraham Lincoln had it culminating with Mercury, the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei – with the Sun, the musician, singer and composer John Lennon – in conjunction with the Ascendant, many theater and film actors – with Mercury or Jupiter, the Russian Patriarch Alexey II, with whom you will meet when Saturn sends you to the parochial school, with the Sun.”
“I have to go, Rukh!” Fomalhaut smiled. “Try to remember me on Earth and not fall into the abyss!”
***
Library of the Universe
“Before you read the little sketch you wrote when you were 12,” the Guardian began as we settled into the Reading Room, but I interrupted him,
“We walked, walked and went through as many as 9 out of 12 Houses, and found the same hardship everywhere. We arrived to the 10th, well, at least some joy appeared, and now you are going to tell me that, in fact…”
“I can’t help but tell you the truth,” the Guardian sighed. “Be patient a little longer, there are only 3 Houses left!”
“Yes, it’s easy for you to think here. I have 3 Houses and hello, Earth! Where all these Saturn-Uranus-Pluto-Vindemiatrix will surround me and pounce on me! All at once! I’ll have to be patient not a little longer! It’s better to let the last 3 Houses last longer! The longer the better! It’s somehow easier to perceive all that here, in Heaven!”
“Your door to House No. 10 is located in one of the worst critical degrees that brings destruction,” the Guardian continued calmly, without arguing with me. “The 4th degree of Piscis is the degree of the Moon, Capricorn-Saturn and Neptune. They, as you remember, are not friends between themselves. In the best case, after overcoming the difficulties that will start to fall on you already in childhood, and after severe disappointments, the last years of your life will be quite calm and quiet, in solitude or asceticism, as compensation for the fortitude of the Spirit and self-sacrifice in extreme situations. So this degree is equated to the degree of ‘rescuers’ and means ‘Victory’.”
“Go straight to the worst,” I said gloomily.
“Alcoholism, drug addiction, phobias, insanity, suicide.”
“All together, or something to choose?” I asked tartly.
“My soul… A stargazer described this degree with such picture. On a sheer cliff, right above the abyss of the raging sea, there is a lonely Lighthouse of Hope. The Creator built it so that it would shine to everyone around and give Hope. Everything around you will be swirling and collapsing, and chaos will multiply, but if you overcome your fear and don’t stop shining to save the ships sailing on the sea, the lighthouse will become a salvation for you as well. You’ll stay in it in absolute safety. No one except the Creator will dare to destroy it. However, none of the earthly people will be able to get close to you. You are a lone lighthouse under the vast dome of Heaven.”
“It looks like what we saw visiting Saturn. He has his multi-stored Tower, the courtyard with violets blooming, and the Garden of Stones fragrant in the dungeon. And here, there is just a Lighthouse. No courtyard, no flowers, no stones. What a longing!”
“But you can accumulate such a magical power that the mountains will move by your gaze! You’ll juggle with scenarios inside the Matrix. Saving people even with the Word is a responsible mission,” the Guardian stroked my back. “Besides, you won’t live in the Dark Tower or the Lighthouse in reality. Everything you see here, before incarnation, is a symbolic picture.”
The book about ghosts opened at another miniature.
“The Voice whispered, ‘You don’t need to look for me somewhere, but in yourself, in your soul, the piece of Heaven that is inside every human being, and no one can separate us, because we are the One.’ However, you couldn’t make out Her words and went farther and farther… from the Truth.”
*****LIGHTHOUSE of HOPE*****
***
Moscow
“Raisa Akhmetovna came to the Court yesterday with the seminarians. They said you had helped many people, also by means of your books,” Ray told me. “You met her at the airport, you both connected to the script of your Future in which you could be buried in Venice, and changed the chain of events. Do you remember?”
“No,” I admitted. “There was a fragment in the diary about the broken chain, a trip to Venice was changed for Bari.”
“If only it had been the end,” Ray sighed. “Are there your medals?”
“The Higher Forces allowed me to win with even crooked verses to light up my name, and then they gave me time to correct, to leave a mark worthy of those victories. One day someone will start studying our time, raise the documents for competitions, the names of the winners, find, read and evaluate us.”
“Of course, Heaven appreciate those who work on themselves with enviable persistence. But how strong you should believe in what will happen to your name when you are no longer alive to exchange your earthly time and joys for investments in a virtual Future!”
“That’s why you’re in Hell. You didn’t think about what would come after.”
***
Ouranoupoli
While Leah was making coffee, I sat next to Me in the Past on the street and suddenly noticed a turtle on the sidewalk, crawling across the road right in front of a car rushing at it. With the power of thought, I instantly lifted the turtle into the air and sent to the seashore.
“Dad, have you seen that? A flying turtle!” shouted the baby in the car.
“Turtles don’t have wings, dreamer!” his father chuckled, looking the other way.
Leah brought coffee to me and Janis, and Me in the Past said,
“Today I’ve visited the grave of St. Paisios in Souroti, in the convent of St. John the Theologian. How did it happen that the Athos Saint was not buried on Athos?”
“Paisios founded that monastery, helped the nuns, and died in it,” Leah replied. “Paisios wanted to return to the Mount, but the doctors didn’t allow that. They say someone came to him on Athos to ask for a girl who had diagnosed with cancer. Paisios prayed to take the illness of the girl upon himself. When he was diagnosed the 4th stage, he danced with joy, saying, God would finally take him, and the pain and trials during life were not the cross of a person, but the Stairway to Heaven.”
“He spent the last days in that monastery, communicating with everyone who wanted to, since not everyone could go to Athos,” Janis added. “People brought things to Paisios so that he could hold them in his hands and return them with his blessing. He was much loved in Greece, almost everyone considered him a Saint even before his death. Many locals from Ouranoupoli visited him on Athos. Paisios died in 1994, at the age of 70, on the day of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. They began to paint him immediately, leaving a place on the icon for the word ‘Saint’. He was canonized only in 2015.”
“Have you read his multi-volume book?” Leah asked. “Well of the Spirit! In simple words, but so profound and about everything.”
“He was a simple man, kind, open,” said Janis, “communicated with everyone without arrogance. He said the main thing was to bring Light to the world, no matter to be a lantern in the city or a lighthouse on a sheer cliff. He became a lonely Lighthouse of Hope and shone to everyone without exception. The church was often scolded for its silence. Many on Athos envied that people went to Paisios in droves not only from Greece. He didn’t know foreign languages and didn’t graduate from institutes, but he spoke to everyone in one’s own language, and that’s one of the gifts of the Apostles. Paisios saw through everyone, approached the crowd of those waiting and said to everyone what no one but that particular person could know. Paisios prophesied, his revelations were given from Heaven, and angels, and the Virgin, and Christ communicated with him, and devils tempted him. He slept on stone slabs, in winter he could live without warm clothes and without a stove. When the cell was covered with snow and the food was over, Paisios prayed, and a bird flew in and dropped him a fish. And the way he treated with the icons! He hugged them like alive and spoke to the Virgin as to his own mother.”
“Hold on to the skirt of the Virgin,” I quoted.
“Exactly, he was like a child!” Leah agreed, nodding her head. “He wished the same for others.”
“However, he was born in Cappadocia, in Turkey,” Janis continued. “St. Arsenios the Cappadocian baptized him and predicted monasticism. Due to the war between Turkey and Greece, Paisios’ family ended up in Greece, first in Corfu, then in Konitsa. Paisios studied as a carpenter, and during the civil war he was a radio operator. He went to Athos only after the war, first to the monastery of Esphigmenou, then retired to the skete, then to the monastery of Philotheou.”
“When did he live in Sinai? Before Athos?” I asked.
“No, after,” Janis replied. “Paisios always dreamed of the desert. He even tried to go to Katounakia, closer to the Holy Mountain. This is between Karoulia, the most disastrous place, where the caves are in sheer cliffs, and the Skete of St. Anna. Paisios had a vision that, instead of Katounakia, he would go to the burned-out monastery of Stomion, not on Athos, revive it, and only after that he was given a blessing on Sinai.”
“He brought rain in a drought there,” Leah added. “He lived in the desert, communicating with animals and birds in their language.”
“Two years later, Paisios returned to Mount Athos, lived in the Iviron Skete,” Janis continued. “After a lung operation, he secluded himself in Katounakia, and then settled in the monastery of Stavronikita, then in the kalive of the Holy Cross and spent his last years in Panaguda, a cell of Koutloumousiou. He had no time to rest for the flow of people waiting him in queues overnight.”
“Even now there is a queue, an incessant flow to his grave,” I agreed. “Why weren’t his relics transferred to Athos?”
“That’s why. People need him here, and not on closed Athos. He hears everything, Alice,” Janis said thoughtfully. “He promised to help us all even after leaving for Heaven, just as he said, ‘sacrifice something you love to God’. Don’t eat sweets, for example, and God will help you. But people don’t want to sacrifice anything. Have you paid attention to what is engraved on his tomb? There are poems.”
“Whose poems?” I was surprised.
“His…”
***
Tower of Ouranoupoli
“You have medals here, under the glass, in the niche, Joice. Tell me, do they matter to you now?” I asked, finishing with my astral tea.
“No, but it’s a piece of my history. I’m not ashamed of them.”
“I’ve seen mine today. Many people went out in jackets decorated with orders and medals. I did so only twice. The 1st time at Mansurova’s seminar, so that people believed, Heaven would help even in the impossible to those following their own path. And the 2nd time in our office, on St. Valentine’s Day, we performed a play, with a plot based on the book of my poems ‘Don’t give me to others’, and there … Joice! My God! There was that Woman! Among the spectators!”
“And what was the play about?”
“About love… missing love… Do poets always have such choice, either love, or creativity? I spoke on stage exclusively in verse, and the others in prose. The story was with refrains. The scene at the ball was repeated three times, like a crescendo, and phrases. First, I went on stage in a black sheet, symbolizing hijab. Every night, the ghost of Ray in a white sheet came to me from the mirror, and we were alone there, white in black and black in white. As a result, I became a ghost, and we both went out to the audience, both in white sheets, I recited the final verse ‘Everything is behind’, and we stepped into the mirror. ‘No anger at idle tirades, no venom of whining grievances. The medals are ridiculous for those who were killed by them. We are waited for the division of possessions in the valley of eternal fire and by the train of unkind visions that will wound me in vain.’ Joice, did Ray show up to take me to Hell?”
“Not everything is behind yet, Alice. You have 16 days more!”
***
Courtroom in the Universe
The Moonlight Sonata still played there, but through the Mist I saw a man with a black cat at the Scales. He told his name, Aaron, but I remembered neither him nor the cat! Frames flashed on the screen – an old castle overgrown with ivy, a huge grave-like stone with some names engraved, a black piano making no sounds when one pressed its keys … Could Aaron be a black magician I had made a deal with in Hell?
***
Library of the Universe
“I was nominated to represent Russian poetry at an international festival in Hungary. 100% it’s manifestation of Higher Forces. Hamlet is a cat, a black one, without a single white spot. Poets from all countries who once came to the festival dedicated poems to him. Aaron (the organizer of the festival) wrote that Hamlet, having found out that Alice was coming, was meowing all the time, ‘Well, when?’”
*****September 14, 2011, Wednesday
An early morning flight. It was cold in Moscow. When I arrived, Aaron and Magda met me, looked at my clothes with a smile, it was +32C in Budapest. We walked around the center (we had to return to the airport to meet Switzerland before going to Aaron’s Castle). I was dying of heat in my black dress. Aaron showed me some beautiful buildings. I remembered only the most expensive cafe in Budapest, amazing street lamps with hanging flower baskets, the Elizabeth Bridge, the statue of a dancing girl at the entrance to the Jewish quarter and red cheerful trams.
“Aaron, what traditional souvenir is usually brought from Hungary? For my boss.”
“What is he like, your boss?”
“I don’t know. I have no money, but I need a gift for him, since he let me go.”
“We’ll be in Szentendre (the city of St. Andrew), we’ll see there.”
Switzerland spoke Italian. He was a well-known journalist on the Balkans and Italy. He came out in a warm black jacket and some scarf and greeted us, asked how I knew Italian.
We lived in the castle of Aaron, a hereditary count. The last day, he would show me the entire castle, all the rooms, the chapel, rare family photos and the coat of arms. He was a former mayor of the city, a well-known poet in Hungary, a professional translator, the president of an international foundation, and that festival organizer. His poems were translated into many languages of the world.
Israel and Estonia arrived before us. The Israel poet was the head of the poetic union of Jerusalem. The Estonian poet was the king of pantomime, the winner of the Berlin competition in the genre of improvisation. We sat in the deep Middle Ages (in the garden) and tried to communicate. It was getting dark. Aaron left to meet Canada. Romania and Austria would arrive even later.
We entertained each other with our creativity. I could speak Russian with Estonia, Italian with Switzerland, English – with others. As Switzerland would say later, each of us had our own “secret language” in which we could communicate face to face. Switzerland with Austria spoke German, Hungary with Romania spoke Romanian, and so on.
It was already dark. We lit the lantern on the castle wall. I took the guitar and sang. Acoustics was a horror, I couldn’t hear myself, the sound disappeared. I sang “It’s cold here”, explained the meaning. Israel nodded, “Yes, familiar,” and told a similar story. “Make an appointment with me at the Silver Bridge”, “Sun over Piemont”, “Waltz with Autumn”. I tried to translate them into English impromptu, a challenging task, “To the music of rains and the crescendo of winds, the calendar began to tremble in my hands”. All they understood was the word “crescendo”.
Israel was smoking a pipe. A kitten climbed onto his shoulders, and the tail became the mustache of Israel. We laughed. I took a picture of his mustache. Israel asked to send his mustache by mail. Switzerland looked down on me. Israel took his book, “I don’t know a single verse by heart. I know strangers’ ones, not my own!” Wow! Not only I had that glitch! Everyone was happy, just like me, the same crap. Switzerland’s turn came. He opened his book at the random page, looked at the text in surprise, then shifted his gaze at me and pronounced the title “Crescendo”. We exchanged glances with a smile, “go ahead, Switzerland, about crescendo!” He recited in German. Nobody understood anything. He translated into English how he drew the line, cutting off the Past to start the Future. Estonia improvised a dialogue of sounds, facial expressions and gestures, cave sounds, but emotions were overwhelming. We laughed. Estonia asked me to recite a poem. “In me… 1 meter and 58 centimeters”, I briefly explained what it was about and recited. Switzerland looked down at me, sitting in an armchair, while I was reciting standing up. Then he languidly asked Estonia, “Tell us how it is, you should have understood at least something.” Estonia looked at me from the bottom up, “Akhmataeva! Akhmatova plus Tsvetaeva!” Israel exclaimed he knew Akhmatova’s poems. Switzerland looked down at me dejectedly and uttered, “And why?” That meant why I wrote like them, it was a shame, they wrote like – and he waved his hand – in the Middle Ages, and that was not poetry. All of Europe, unlike Russia, wrote modern poetry, white or free verses, and Russia kept resisting. We discussed whether it was possible to live in our countries on creativity or not. It wasn’t possible anywhere, just Estonia said it was. Very cold. I wanted coffee. Estonia and Israel searched the castle for a kettle and coffee and brought them to me.
Closer to the night, Canada arrived, a professor at the University of Toronto, an optimistic, always smiling Afro-Canadian, who never stopped speaking very, very loudly. Magda, who spoke no language but Hungarian, fed us dinner and covered me with a blanket, since I was frozen. I asked if anyone had seen Hamlet. No, they answered, Hamlet was a ghost. Aaron called me to the garden, showed me Hamlet, “He has come to meet you. He usually works in the fields with women,” Aaron joked. The dogs began to howl. I looked at the clock, it was midnight, and Switzerland looked at the sky, “The Moon has risen.” I went up to my part of the castle on the 3rd floor to the room with the fireplace next to the library. I gifted to Aaron my “Marina, Anna, Alexandra”, “Scream to the Unanswered” and the last (hooray!) copy of “On the Road to Heaven” books. Aaron gave me his books. There was a guitar in the room. The sponsor said, “I want this Russian to sing!” I turned on the mobile phone. A text message arrived, Mansurova had called me, but it was already 2 hours past midnight in Moscow. I turned off my phone. On the inner screen, there was the face of a man in Moscow.
*****September 15, 2011, Thursday
We got up at dawn, had breakfast. We drove in several cars with a guitar to the city of St. Andrew (Szentendre), the cultural center of Hungary. Romantic, a tiny city with red roofs and very beautiful houses, narrow streets, everything as I liked. Switzerland was again in his black warm jacket and scarf. I left my jacket in Magda’s car. The Sun was hitting at its full. I came up to Switzerland,
“Are you cold?”
“Yes, I’m always cold!” he laughed.
We walked to the old cemetery, then along the streets, the only place where we were not in a hurry, having time to stop at souvenir shops.
“Aaron, what to gift to my boss?”
He listed the options, all was wrong. I bought my son a pencil in the shape of a wooden local in national dress, and Canada bought a shawl. I stopped at a shop window full of witches on broomsticks. I pointed to Romania at the witch and at myself, “That’s me.” Romania understood only Romanian. I tried to explain in every language I knew that every woman was a bit of a witch. Romania laughed, pointed his finger at me and said, “Princess!”
Aaron found the narrowest streets and photographed me. I saw a white house with blue patterns with the inscription “Nostalgia” above the door. Switzerland was nearby, I asked him to take a picture of me against such background.
“Oh, do you like Tarkovsky?”
I nodded happily. 1:0 in my favor. Switzerland looked at me almost on an equal footing. We went down to the Danube embankment. Finally, I found what to buy for the boss, I showed it to Aaron.
“Tell him I grew that honey personally for him in my garden!”
In the largest gymnasium they fed us lunch. Fruit soup was their usual dish for the 1st course. A sweet pink compote puree with fruits floating in it. We winced first, then we ate. For the 2nd course we had fish. For the 3rd we got a tour. In the courtyard, there was “The Universe”, a stone ball constantly rotating in the same direction in a fountain. Perpetum mobile.
On the stage of a huge hall with stained-glass windows in the Gothic style, there were flags of different countries, microphones and a piano, on which Switzerland played amazingly before the concert. A sea of students in white shirts and blue skirts with ties flooded the hall. We were seated in the front rows, and, after official greetings, they immediately announced me as the Russian Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva. I got up on the stage, recited my poems. Then the students read out my biography and poems in Hungarian, translated by Aaron, who said that it had been terribly difficult to translate me. We were followed by local poets’ performance. We were given translations of their poems into English.
At the end they announced me with the guitar. I apologized that I was neither professional singer nor musician, it was just that sometimes poems came with music, so I would try to give them an idea, how it could be. I explained the essence of the text in English, they translated me into Hungarian. I sang “It’s too cold here”, in the middle I forgot the words, but I got out, in general I sang very well. “Bravo” was shouted from the audience. I bowed. Each of us was given a commemorative postcard with the coat of arms of the city and the signatures of those who had read our poems and biographies. Everyone was called on the stage, we were photographed. Canada exclaimed, “No paparazzi!” We laughed. During the festival, 5,000 shots were taken, for comparison, I took 590.
We wrote our wishes in the “Commemorative Guestbook”. A teacher came up to me, told me in English that her husband was Russian, she understood Russian. She really liked both the poems and the song, hugged me, almost crying, leading me to the piano, asked to play something. I hadn’t played for 20 years. I thought in horror, “What can I play?” But my hands remembered themselves. She took pictures of me with flags at the piano and asked me to read more into the microphone. I didn’t know my poems by heart! I read in Latin “I erected a monument to myself, not hand-made”. Do you think Pushkin wrote it? No, he translated. I still remembered that poem I had learnt for the exam of the 2nd year at the Academy.
While everyone was gathering downstairs, I sang along with the guitar. It was already dark. We were 2 hours late for the installation of the memorial stone with our names. Aaron was nervous. I asked Israel to take a picture of me in front of the gymnasium with the guitar.
“How much do you pay?”
He took a photo. We went to the graves. I asked Israel,
“Isn’t it in the cemetery we visited in the morning?”
“I found out from Hamlet that cats have 9 lives. In case, Hamlet will share with us!”
Austria was chasing us. An architect, he drew my attention to almost every house, telling what was where in what style and of what century.
“Listen, they say you are Russian Akhmatova.”
“Do you know Akhmatova?”
“Yes, and Tsvetaeva with a tragic fate, right? Do they pay you?”
We sighed. He said they didn’t pay him as well, so he was an architect.
We came to the park. It was night. The dogs were howling. Trees, deep darkness. We stopped at the marble slabs on the hill. Well … as I thought … gravestones! We tried to make out our names. Switzerland said they lost the “R” in his name. I climbed the hill and hovered right above our “grave” against the background of the ominous darkness under the tree, Austria took a picture of me. Immediately after that frame, the charge died. Actually, it was a park. There was the Alley of Stars or Glory. A stele and a fountain were planned in the center. Aaron said, “You understand this is not for us – for those who come after…”
We dined on the banks of the Danube with the local goulash, a soup with meat and very hot spices. I fished out the meat, but sharp crap came across, my mouth was on fire while I was shivering from the cold. My jacket had been left in Magda’s car in the morning. Estonia took off his jumper and silently handed it to me. I thanked him and put it on, but it was still cold. Estonia remained in a T-shirt with short sleeves. Switzerland approached us in his warm black jacket with his scarf. He sat down next to me and evaluated my shivering body (remember my question “Are you cold?”).
“Are you hot?” he asked sarcastically, and I laughed, appreciating, and he turned to Estonia, “Are you cold?”
“I can’t say yes,” Estonia nodded his head at me.
“Get it over already!” Switzerland laughed. “This is history. Estonia always suffers because of Russia.”
While everyone was drinking, we were left alone with Switzerland. He asked,
“Have you seen the Red Moon over the Danube? It’s invisible here because of the house, but the Moon is there. Red one. I think it’s a good start for a poem. No?”
I nodded “yes”. Romania came up, hugged me and said in Russian, “Beautiful”. Magda brought our clothes from the car. I returned the jumper to Estonia. We came back to the castle. The dogs were howling. It was midnight. We were sitting in the garden. Israel gave me his books. I went to my room, switched the phone on and got a text from my godmother, “I pray for you.” I wrote briefly where we had been, switched the phone off. I couldn’t sleep, since on the internal screen there was the face of a man in Moscow. I switched my phone on again and wrote him a poem.
*****September 16, 2011, Friday
06:00. Alarm clock. Breakfast. Austria and Canada were still sleeping. Aaron was nervous, the train to Budapest didn’t run that often, we must not be late.
“Should I take the guitar?” I asked in hope of Aaron’s “no”.
“Yes, definitely. Tonight we’ll be at the main sponsor, it’s he who wanted you to sing.”
We walked to the station. I had my rucksack and the guitar. Switzerland called out to me and silently held out his hand to the guitar. I passed it to him silently. We were in the train for a long time and I wanted to sleep, but Aaron was talking to me, it was inconvenient not to answer. Estonia asked me to sing for the carriage. “I don’t want to…”
“What will you sing today?” asked Aaron, in charge of all the performances, he had to announce us, the interpreter had to translate the titles, etc.
“I’ve learned to love you from afar…”
Budapest. We left the guitar in the house of our evening performance and walked around the city. We drank coffee in the ethnographic museum opposite the Parliament, and then we almost started running. However, it was still cold. I was in a jacket and with my rucksack. On the way, there was a monument to Reagan walking down the street. I came up, stood next to him, took his hand, the interpreter joked, “We’ll put Gorbachev here, and then Alice.” It was getting hot. I took off my jacket and put it in my rucksack. Switzerland came up and laughed.
“Yes, now I carry everything with me!” I nodded.
We went on along the embankment towards the Elizabeth Bridge and the Statue of Liberty on the mountain on the other side. On the way, we came across a monument to Shakespeare. Everyone passed by, Estonia and I stopped. He took pictures of me. We ran to catch up with ours.
“When you come to me in Estonia, we’ll drink coffee in the ‘Shakespeare’ cafe!”
We walked around the city, my legs no longer wanted to go anywhere. Back to the Parliament. They didn’t let you in without your passport. I had left my passport in the castle! We were met by a deputy. Aaron asked him to let me in. The deputy took us to a place where tourists weren’t allowed, and allowed us to take pictures with a flash where they weren’t allowed to take pictures at all. A red carpet hall, a blue carpet hall, a meeting room, an elevator, and they opened a balcony for us, which was open to almost nobody. We took pictures on the balcony and had a chat with the deputy. He bowed low to me for being photographed with him, and I bowed low to him for the same. The promenade again. Then we had lunch. Austria asked,
“Are you alive? I’m an athlete, every day I ride a bike around Vienna, but our forced march today is a nightmare!”
We entered a fruit shop, everything was free for us. They gave me a basket of selected raspberries. We walked to the house where our poems would live on the walls. Everyone found one’s own.
“Your ‘Artist’ is hung here, Alice,” Aaron smiled and showed where my “Artist” was in Russian and in Hungarian, plus my biography. I faced with Switzerland. His poem was hung with my “Artist” in the same gap between the windows.
“And again we are together!” Switzerland said doomfully.
Aaron took a picture of us under our hanged poems. “Ophelia” by Aaron was on the opposite wall. It had been translated into almost all languages of the world. That building was a residential guest house for businessmen. I read “Popov Mikhail” on a mailbox at the entrance door. And again we walked, walked, walked…
By 19:00 we arrived to the general sponsor, the main vodka producer of Hungary. Vodka was called “Palenka” with the accent on the 1st syllable.
Aaron told me to sit next to him, at the presenter’s table in front of the hall. It was so stuffy. No forces left. The windows were closed, otherwise one couldn’t hear anything, even with microphones. And again, I was the first to recite and the last to sing. Everyone except me had been given home task to write about vodka. Aaron talked about me. I recited “158 cm”. Switzerland was the next. He recited his poem “Russian Stream” in German. Then he was translated into Hungarian. A few hours later, Aaron finally announced that I was going to sing a Russian romance, or “a chanson” in Hungary. I was already somewhere in Another Reality from stuffiness and fatigue. I sang to them from Another Reality. It was amazing. They shouted “bravo”. Magda showed me with gestures that she was about to weep. The official part was over. An old man, the director of the film, approached me (we were always filmed, but not for us). In absolutely correct Russian, he suddenly said that he had been to Russia and listened to Vysotsky. He kissed my hand. He said that I was great, and it was great I had recited and sung in Russian. I asked if I could buy the video. He said it would be free for me, but in a week, and we smoothly moved to the next room for a tasting.
Everyone was given a personalized tray with 6 short glasses with lids, each with its own aroma. Switzerland stayed to my right, Romania – to my left.
“Romania has a wife of your age! He is Count Dracula, be careful!” Switzerland whispered. I raised an eyebrow in surprise, Romania was 73 years old, everyone there was much older than me.
They brought us the next glasses with the next aromas. However, I didn’t drink. Switzerland silently sniffed and passed it to me to sniff. One had to guess the smell. I guessed nothing. Ages passed. I drank water. Mineral water. Switzerland whispered in my ear,
“Mind you, our glasses have remained on the same level!” (he didn’t drink either).
I nodded. My glasses moved through Romania to Canada. I didn’t mind that. Canada was trying to tell me something, but there was video recording and we couldn’t talk. Then Canada sent me a note on a napkin, “I want you to sing again!” I shook my head negatively, already cracking from stuffiness. Canada replied, “I am sad.” Switzerland whispered in my ear,
“It’s customary for you to get so drunk to be carried out later, or you don’t respect someone there. Do you have to invent false pregnancies?”
Canada kept picking up glasses not drunk by others and, as usual, saying something very loudly and cheerfully.
“Switzerland, take a picture of my personalized tray,” I asked. “My charger is dead. Then email it to me, okay?”
“You’ll take this tray with you tonight and photograph it from all the sides!” he replied but took a picture and showed my portrait, “Alice and 6 glasses of vodka!”
Laughing, I went out to get some air. We stood with Austria at the open window to the courtyard. He told me about the building, in what style it had been built, when, where else similar ones could be found. We shared our impressions, discussed poetic parties and came back. Together with Switzerland we ate bread and drank mineral water glass by glass. At parting, each of us was given a bottle of vodka, but I left mine to Aaron.
We went out on the stairs with Switzerland. He took my guitar. I took out my jacket. It was already cold. We stood together at the window in silence. Estonia came up and began to pantomime his love to me, although he hadn’t drunk alcohol either. Switzerland played along with him on the guitar. Everyone was waiting for Canada, he was the last to appear, screaming uncontrollably loudly and merrily. A Hungarian from the apartment above asked to speak more quietly, everyone in the house was asleep. Switzerland and I were waiting for the car downstairs.
“I don’t want to go with Canada,” I said.
“Do you like silence?” Switzerland laughed.
Cars were coming up. I wondered if we would end up in the same car doing nothing. Everyone got into the minibus. We kept standing. There were 2 seats left in the minibus, one – among guests, the second – next to the driver. Switzerland saw only one seat. Estonia knew that there were two, resolutely climbed into the minibus and beckoned me to join. Switzerland looked at me with a question, “But there are no more seats there!” Aaron approached, “Alice, sit down next to the driver.”
A silent scene. Estonia, me and Switzerland. Switzerland handed me a guitar and said sadly,
“I’ll retell you later.”
He meant, “Don’t get upset.” I got up next to the driver. Switzerland went into their car, where they dragged Canada in. Aaron was to travel with Canada, Austria and Switzerland.
The verse was pouring in Italian. I tried to write it down. The music from the film “Professional” was sounding. Having left the highway, the driver stopped and started calling Aaron, we had turned some wrong way. Half an hour later a car pulled up with Aaron, Switzerland, Canada and Austria. Aaron abruptly opened my door,
“Alice, get in that car. I need to show the way to the driver.”
I got in the car with Switzerland, Canada and Austria. I laughed with Switzerland and said in Italian, “It was the wrong decision”. I heard in response, “Believe it or not, he didn’t utter a word. He had been asleep. Although, now, perhaps, for your sake…”
…We got in the castle, sat down at a table in the garden. The dogs began to howl. We looked at the clock together. It was midnight. I switched the phone on and got silence. On the inner screen, there was still the face of that man in Moscow. I wanted to write to him. Every time I had switched my phone on, wanting to receive a text message from him. I switched my phone off. Once again I rewrote the verse in Italian. I wanted to recite it the next day at our last performance, so that the highland Switzerland would finally look at me from the bottom up.
*****September 17, 2011, Saturday
Early in the morning we had breakfast in the garden.
“How did you sleep?” Switzerland asked.
“I wrote a poem in Italian. For you. I want to ask Aaron to change the program for today and let me recite it in Italian.”
Switzerland looked at me somehow strangely, thinking I had written some kindergarten crap. We walked to the cars. He carried my guitar. Aaron came up and in an insistent voice, to our surprise, said,
“Switzerland will go with Russia. They both speak Italian.”
We sat down to Magda with Israel and Austria. Magda turned on the radio, and everyone was in shock, there was a program about Marina Tsvetaeva! We drove in silence to the city of Isaszeg. After Tsvetaeva, Magda turned on the music. Italian song “Parla con me” (“Talk to me”). I was almost dancing in the car, humming the song, looking forward to seeing the highland Switzerland after reciting my “Red Moon over the Danube” in the evening.
In Isaszeg we were taken to the national museum, like the “Borodino panorama”, then to a Slovenian house, with old furnishings, high beds with a bunch of pillows almost to the ceiling. Switzerland and I looked at the mountain of pillows and blankets, “How did people get on these beds?” The house reminded me of Russia.
Again vodka, and bread for a snack. Switzerland and I didn’t drink. Canada kept cheering loudly and drinking more. We were constantly being filmed… On the street, children and adults in national dress put us in a horse-drawn carriage to take us to the mountain. They took photos of everyone for a long time, we were looking forward to a ride by the horse, but it suddenly categorically refused to go and even backed away. They asked 3 out of 14 people to go down, maybe it was just hard for the horse. However, the horse moved when there was no one left in the carriage except the driver. We walked uphill on a dusty country road with stones. My shoes were with heels. Romania gestured the desire to take me in his palms and carry me upstairs. They gave us a concert on the mountain in the forest, nearby the wooden Phoenix Bird and the memorial to those who had died in the battle. We ate at wooden tables and benches while people performed folk dances. Then we all danced together and had fun. A girl with a whip appeared, presenting her show – she snapped it against the ground so that it rang in my ears. Canada was no longer very adequate, went to try snapping too. Aaron told me about himself, as a child he had lived next to the gypsies.
“Am I a gypsy?” I asked, explaining the fact that I didn’t know what kind of blood had been mixed in me.
“No, they are evil and don’t recognize anyone but gypsies. You are not like that. You are a Great Soul.”
The Minister of Culture of Hungary called Aaron by phone. He was offended that he hadn’t been invited.
It was easier for the horse to go down from the mountain – we went in the carriage. Canada was given a bottle of wine after vodka. We stepped down to the ground, Switzerland picked me up – there was some kind of ditch – and said,
“How many lifeguards do you have here? Romania has dedicated a verse to you, listen, ‘I would like to take you in my palms and carry you up the mountain, princess, let your heels leave traces of the wounds of Christ on my palms’, ” Switzerland looked at my dusty shoes, “They seemed to be black in the morning. What dirty poets we are!”
Hiking another mountain. Canada heard the sounds of a gypsy tabor and asked to visit it. Israel wanted to visit Jewish cemetery. After the Jewish cemetery, we were again led up the hill to the old church. It was cold there. We sat for a while, lost in thoughts. Then we went through another large, but no longer Jewish cemetery. I said to Switzerland,
“Cemetery day.”
“Don’t you need sometimes to think about something?”
I didn’t want to explain. I had already thought too often. There were three crucifixes on the mountain, of Christ and 2 thieves, and a gypsy camp below.
It was getting dark. We discussed the order to recite and sing in the library. We were already very tired. Cameras switched on again. Aaron told me to sit next to him (in the center). To my left was Canada. On the right there was the local choir, more to the right – a flute player and local poets. The hall was overcrowded. Constant photo flash. On the walls, framed under glass, there were our poems, photographs and biographies. Very long speeches. They said, a very strong group. That time I was to recite in the end, the penultimate, before Switzerland, he sat somewhere on my left. I longed to look at him after my “Red Moon” composed out of our phrases to each other during those three days.
Aaron introduced me, “Surprise, surprise! Alice wrote a poem in Italian last night”. But at the beginning I recited my “If” to them at the request of Aaron, he had a similar “Broken Words”. Aaron himself recited out the translation of my poem into Hungarian (the rest poets were recited by local residents). Everyone was delighted. No one in the audience knew what my newly minted “Red Moon” would mean for me and for Russia too. I would have to recite it so that the highland Switzerland finally looked at me from the bottom up. Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva were not the Middle Ages! You should to write with your heart! Writing white or free poems (like my “Red Moon”) was much easier and always welcome! Try, Europe, to write like our Great Women. I got up, smiling, proudly raising my head in front of the cameras.
“Really, I don’t know if this can be called poetry,” I said, turning abruptly to Switzerland and back to the cameras.
Dead silence in the hall. I started reciting. Switzerland was somewhere behind on the left. I was reciting with a lot of energy, like a skier at an international sporting event, who went to the finish, already with a large margin from his pursuers, already knowing that the 1st place would be his. I arrived to Tarkovsky’s “Nostalgia”. Austria couldn’t stand it anymore and left the table, though it was forbidden, went down to the hall and started photographing me from there. “Yes, yes, I am the first!” By my spinal cord I felt Switzerland looking thoughtfully at the floor, with his temples throbbing, he withdrew into himself. I finished reciting. Hardly anyone from those present knew Italian and could understand it completely, but … applauses. Austria from the audience cried,
“Tarkovsky? Did I get it right? Is it about ‘Nostalgia’?”
Aaron addressed Switzerland in front of the audience,
“You know Italian, unlike us. Is what Alice has just read poetry?”
I could barely contain my emotions inside. I knew how hard it was for him. He stepped up to the microphone and said,
“Yes, this is poetry.”
There it was, my moment of glory! He looked at the floor and recited his sullen and monotonous German. I sang “Make me an Appointment at the Silver Bridge”. Then local poets, a flautist, and a choir performed. When the official part was over, people from the audience came up to me. They tried to explain the impression I had made on them, with gestures and facial expressions, without words, because they spoke only Hungarian. I went downstairs to get some air and, going back up, I bumped into Switzerland on the stairs, he stopped me. We were silent, opposite each other, but then he hugged me and said quietly and very sadly,
“Thank you… You’ve been so great…”
I returned to the hall, journalists with an interpreter came up to me, and I also had to write something it the “Commemorative Guestbook”. The “Girl with the Whip” threw herself on my neck and handed me a piece of paper. Magda pulled me by the hand to take a picture with my poem on the wall under framed glass. Austria asked me,
“Tarkovsky, Pudovkin, I’ve forgotten who is the third with them?”
The interpreter said that the Girl with the Whip was a poetess too, she felt everything I had recited about, even without knowing the words. She had asked to translate her poem into English and gave it to me. She saw me as Another World’s one and would learn English in order to be able to communicate with me. Some man said through the interpreter that Vysotsky lived in me, although I had sung in a completely different way, but I had recited everything inside out. Someone from the audience just came up and hugged me. I wearily walked to the buffet table. Austria whispered in my ear, “You are the best! No one has ever recited poetry like you! I didn’t understand anything, but it was amazing!” Estonia, “I can’t understand Italian, but I understood that only a Russian soul can write and recite like that. Do you understand? You are the Great One!” I signed something to someone. Then, tired, I plopped down into a chair in the corner of the reading room. Switzerland came up to me, handed one of two glasses of white wine and silently sat down in a chair nearby. We were silent for a long time. Then he said, accompanying with gestures,
“It was so strong that I still can’t get over it.”
He looked at me up, from the bottom up. The wall collapsed. We told each other a lot of things, going down into the night. He had to leave at 6 in the morning for the plane. We were about to get into the car when the Girl with the Whip ran up to me and hugged me. Aaron said that we wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, since the press conference for the media would last until the morning. We got into the car with Switzerland. We forgot about political correctness towards Israel, all the way chatting about this and that in Italian for about 2 hours in a row, but in front of me there was the face of the man in Moscow. We arrived, sat down at the table. They drank wine, coffee was for me. Switzerland laughed,
“At your 2 o’clock night in Moscow, coffee is just what you need!”
We answered questions for a long time. Canada fell asleep right at the table during our press conference. The interpreter held on, but his tongue was already weaving. Romania gave up the conference and went to bed. Every hour Switzerland quoted my “Red Moon” (there was a question there, “How many hours are left?”) and looked at his watch, counting down the time on fingers. It was time for him to go to the airport. We hugged.
“Will you send me that poem? Both official and unofficial version?”
“I’ll wait from you the photo ‘Alice and 6 glasses of vodka’! ” I laughed.
“Sometimes the paths cross when you don’t expect them to at all.”
I got 3.5 hours to sleep…
*****September 18, 2011, Sunday
At breakfast, Israel handed me a flash drive with 5,000 paparazzi photos and asked me to send him his “cat mustache”. Ray called me,
“Do you know if Count Dracula’s Castle has been vacated there yet?”
“Romania hasn’t reported. Do you want to live in that castle?”
“And don’t you?!”
I didn’t care. I wanted the Future to merge with the Past in the Present… On the way to the airport we stopped at a church. The director of the film, who had been at our performance at the general sponsor, gave me the DVD with the recording. On the cover, there was my photo in the form of the Queen of Hearts. I was with the guitar on one side and reciting “158 cm” turned upside down, all in hearts, like on the playing cards. I bowed low to him, and he bowed low to me. Aaron said, “Get in the car! We are late for the plane!” While we were driving, Aaron told me that he saw the sign of a star on my forehead, “You were the first of them all… You are Another One.”
I didn’t know yet that on September 21, 2011 I would receive a letter from Aaron,
“I sent you an article yesterday. The first reviews. The 1st day, in the gymnasium of Szentendre, 3 poets – You, Jaan Malin, George Elliott Clarke – were the best. The 2nd day, in Budapest, for the main sponsor You and George were the best. The main sponsor spoke a little Russian and he really liked your ‘158 cm’! The 3rd day, in Isaszeg, the best were You and George. All the sponsors (they were more, you didn’t know, they were incognito) liked You, George, Jaan Malin and Menechem Falek. They talked that others were sometimes completely indifferent. They didn’t understand why they were in Hungary. The deputy made a report for the Minister of culture: You, George, Jaan and Menachem. His opinion was given by a woman who spoke English. And yet another deputy received other opinions from here and from there. YOU WERE THE MOST SUCCESSFUL HERE! Now You’ll get the attention of the Minister of culture! Sponsors and heads of towns called me. A lot of important people tell me that you should get the Hungarian Literary Prize! Hungary and Budapest are opening the door for you! The Hungarian people liked you. Hungary is the gate of Western art. Budapest is an important cultural center in Europe and in the world. Congratulations to you!! Aaron Gaal.”
A year later, from the next festival, the Russian poet would bring me 20 copies of my book, published in March 2012 in Hungary (translated into Hungarian with my illustrations), the statuette “New Pleiades” 2012 (an international competition with one winner out of 100, at the level of the Hungarian government) and a diploma. The figurine was engraved in Hungarian with my name and the Russian Federation on the one side and the name of the competition on the other. Aaron said it was their Hungarian Nobel. The diploma was in a blue velvet folder and had 3 signatures and 3 reasons (merits in the field of literature). I didn’t understand anything, but I understand that it was cool (I’m laughing). It all would happen later. That day I came home from Hungary already at night, threw my rucksack on the floor and didn’t even unpack it.
*****September 19, 2011, Monday
In the morning, I pulled out of my rucksack a gift for my boss, a jar of Hungarian honey with a beautiful lid wrapped in checkered cloth. Without having slept enough, in a semi-delirious state, I ran into the office. My boss was not there yet. I entered his room, left a gift on the table by the computer and left for my office. We met on the balcony in the evening. He asked me,
“Have you called Germany?”
And he started telling me about some needs for armchairs and sofas, how much they needed to be voiced, and some other nonsense. Not a word about Hungary. He didn’t even say just “thank you”.